SelectUSA FDI Database · 56 states and territories · 46 countries courted
Who states court, and who already holds a U.S. medical-device or automotive registration
Every U.S. state and territory told the federal government which countries it wants foreign direct investment (FDI) from. Beside those lists sit the companies that hold a U.S. medical-device or automotive registration — two regulated sectors, not the whole economy. Among the countries with the most registrations the two lists mostly agree. Where they part and which countries no jurisdiction names at all are set out below.
Demand from the SelectUSA FDI Database — snapshot: February 2025. Registrations compiled from U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) device owner/operator records and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) vehicle-manufacturer records, September 30, 2026. Eighteen months apart.
What these two numbers are
- Courted by
- How many of the 56 jurisdictions name the country as a target for investment. It is a count of stated intentions by U.S. economic development organisations, not of anything that has happened.
- Registrations
- Companies reporting that country which hold a U.S. medical-device or automotive registration — 12,499 device establishments and 5,155 vehicle manufacturers, two regulatory registries and not every sector. A registration is a filing with a U.S. regulator. It is not a plant, a plan, a commitment or an investment, and the source establishes no investment intent for any company in it. The split is given here for the file and not per country: which registry a country appears in is a fact about which two registries were queried, and for most countries one half is small enough to name a company.
- Gap
- A country’s rank by how many jurisdictions court it, minus its rank by registrations. Positive means more companies are registered than the courting would suggest; negative means the reverse. Both ranks run over the same 114 countries.
Before the table
What the comparison shows
7of the top 10 appear on both lists
The two lists agree until you reach the largest source of all
Of the 10 countries with the most registrations, 7 are also among the 10 most courted. The exceptions are China, Taiwan and Mexico. China is the largest of them and the largest overall: 6,826 registrations, 39% of every one counted here and 6.7× the next country, courted by 11 of 56 jurisdictions. Its own collection is known to be partial, so that count is a floor.
71countries no jurisdiction names
784 registrations sit in countries nobody is courting
Of the 114 countries where companies were counted, 71 appear on no jurisdiction’s target list. They hold 784 of the 17,654 registrations counted here. Whether that is an opportunity or a correct judgement about where capital comes from is not something a registration count can settle.
88countries not collected
The table below is 114 countries, not the world
The source lists 202 countries and keeps the 88 where it collected nothing visible rather than dropping them. Those are absent from the ranking here, because a country nobody counted cannot be compared on how many companies it has. That matters for Cabo Verde, Ghana and Qatar, which are courted and were never collected — not courted and empty.
114 countries, by registrations
| Country | Courted by | Registrations | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 11 | 6,826 | +16 |
| Canada | 40 | 1,022 | +2 |
| Germany | 46 | 982 | -1 |
| South Korea | 40 | 896 | +2 |
| Taiwan | 19 | 798 | +10 |
| United Kingdom | 48 | 617 | -5 |
| Italy | 29 | 551 | 0 |
| Mexico | 19 | 486 | +4 |
| India | 19 | 450 | +1 |
| Japan | 46 | 431 | -7 |
| France | 40 | 385 | -6 |
| Israel | 19 | 330 | -1 |
| Hong Kong | 1 | 302 | +21 |
| Vietnam | 6 | 266 | +11 |
| Switzerland | 20 | 248 | -7 |
| Australia | 19 | 209 | -7 |
| Malaysia | 1 | 208 | +22 |
| Netherlands | 19 | 190 | -5 |
| Sweden | 7 | 184 | +4 |
| Spain | 19 | 180 | -6 |
| Thailand | 1 | 180 | +22 |
| Pakistan | none | 172 | — |
| Türkiye | 3 | 153 | +6 |
| Brazil | 10 | 125 | -5 |
| Denmark | 8 | 118 | -4 |
| Singapore | 11 | 94 | -8 |
| Belgium | 9 | 90 | -7 |
| Ireland | 18 | 85 | -12 |
| Poland | 1 | 80 | +12 |
| Indonesia | 1 | 74 | +6 |
| Austria | 7 | 66 | -9 |
| Finland | 3 | 59 | -4 |
| Cambodia | none | 53 | — |
| New Zealand | 4 | 49 | -8 |
| Czechia | none | 47 | — |
| Colombia | none | 42 | — |
| Hungary | none | 41 | — |
| South Africa | 2 | 40 | -7 |
| Russia | none | 31 | — |
| Argentina | none | 30 | — |
| Philippines | 2 | 23 | -11 |
| Dominican Republic | none | 21 | — |
| Romania | none | 21 | — |
| Norway | 4 | 20 | -17 |
| Costa Rica | none | 19 | — |
| Slovakia | none | 19 | — |
| Slovenia | none | 19 | — |
| Portugal | none | 17 | — |
| United Arab Emirates | 6 | 17 | -25 |
| Lithuania | none | 16 | — |
| Sri Lanka | none | 15 | — |
| Peru | none | 12 | — |
| Bangladesh | none | 11 | — |
| Morocco | none | 11 | — |
| Serbia | none | 11 | — |
| Egypt | 1 | 10 | -23 |
| Estonia | none | 10 | — |
| Liechtenstein | none | 10 | — |
| Latvia | none | 9 | — |
| Luxembourg | 1 | 9 | -22 |
| Bulgaria | none | 8 | — |
| Ukraine | none | 8 | — |
| Greece | none | 7 | — |
| Macao | none | 7 | — |
| Panama | none | 7 | — |
| Uruguay | none | 7 | — |
| Chile | none | 6 | — |
| Croatia | none | 6 | — |
| Iceland | 1 | 6 | -34 |
| Tunisia | none | 6 | — |
| Venezuela | none | 6 | — |
| El Salvador | none | 5 | — |
| Jordan | 1 | 4 | -36 |
| Laos | none | 4 | — |
| Myanmar | none | 4 | — |
| North Macedonia | none | 4 | — |
| Saudi Arabia | 1 | 4 | -35 |
| Belarus | none | 3 | — |
| Cyprus | none | 3 | — |
| Guatemala | none | 3 | — |
| Isle of Man | none | 3 | — |
| Kenya | none | 3 | — |
| Lebanon | none | 3 | — |
| Monaco | none | 3 | — |
| Nicaragua | none | 3 | — |
| Samoa | none | 3 | — |
| Belize | none | 2 | — |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | none | 2 | — |
| Ecuador | none | 2 | — |
| Kazakhstan | none | 2 | — |
| Mauritius | none | 2 | — |
| Nigeria | 1 | 2 | -52 |
| Oman | none | 2 | — |
| Paraguay | none | 2 | — |
| Trinidad and Tobago | none | 2 | — |
| Uzbekistan | none | 2 | — |
| Albania | none | 1 | — |
| Algeria | none | 1 | — |
| Andorra | none | 1 | — |
| Armenia | none | 1 | — |
| Barbados | none | 1 | — |
| Bolivia | none | 1 | — |
| British Virgin Islands | 1 | 1 | -71 |
| Georgia | none | 1 | — |
| Honduras | none | 1 | — |
| Marshall Islands | none | 1 | — |
| Micronesia | none | 1 | — |
| Nepal | none | 1 | — |
| Rwanda | none | 1 | — |
| San Marino | none | 1 | — |
| Seychelles | none | 1 | — |
| St. Barthélemy | none | 1 | — |
| Uganda | none | 1 | — |
| Vanuatu | none | 1 | — |
China: 26,000 of 42,312 FDA listing rows collected. Other 106 named foreign facility countries complete. A country’s registration count is therefore a floor where the collection is known to be partial, not a measurement. Country is as the registrant reported it, which is not necessarily where the company is ultimately owned.
The 88 the table does not hold
Named rather than counted. A reader given only the number has to take it on trust; the names let them check whether the country they came for is missing from the ranking because nothing was collected there, which is not the same as having no companies.
- Afghanistan
- Angola
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Azerbaijan
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Benin
- Bermuda
- Bhutan
- Botswana
- Brunei
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cabo Verde
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Congo
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Cuba
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Djibouti
- Dominica
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Ethiopia
- Fiji
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Grenada
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Holy See
- Iran
- Iraq
- Jamaica
- Kiribati
- Kosovo
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Maldives
- Mali
- Malta
- Mauritania
- Moldova
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Nauru
- Niger
- North Korea
- Palau
- Palestine
- Papua New Guinea
- Qatar
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Suriname
- Syria
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Timor-Leste
- Togo
- Tonga
- Turkmenistan
- Tuvalu
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
The other side of this
The demand half — which industries each jurisdiction is courting, which incentive programs it has on the books and who to write to — is the directory this page sits under.
All 56 states and territoriesWhat Applied America does with this
From what a jurisdiction offers to who is looking for it
Applied America, a nonprofit division of CEFA, carries public priorities to projects that get built. Matching what a jurisdiction offers to the companies and investors who need it is part of that work, and the directory this page sits under is where it starts. Embassies and investment ministries weighing U.S. sites start at Embassies & Governments.
Investor Origination